Published 4:00 am, Saturday, October 29, 2005

Photo: Darryl Bush

Image 1of/4

Caption

Close

Image 1 of 4

japansociety_0031_db.jpg
Christopher J. Sigur, president of The Japan Society of Northern California, in their offices showing a Japanese doll and their logo in the background.
Event on 10/27/05 in San Francisco.
Darryl Bush / The Chronicle MANDATORY CREDIT FOR PHOTOG AND SF CHRONICLE/ -MAGS OUT less

japansociety_0031_db.jpg
Christopher J. Sigur, president of The Japan Society of Northern California, in their offices showing a Japanese doll and their logo in the background.
Event on 10/27/05 in San ... more

Photo: Darryl Bush

Image 2 of 4

japansociety_002_HO.jpg
Kisaburo Ueno -- Japanese Consul General in San Francisco from 1901-1906. Founding member of the Japan Society
Photo courtesy of the Japan Society MANDATORY CREDIT FOR PHOTOG AND SF CHRONICLE/ -MAGS OUT less

japansociety_002_HO.jpg
Kisaburo Ueno -- Japanese Consul General in San Francisco from 1901-1906. Founding member of the Japan Society
Photo courtesy of the Japan Society MANDATORY CREDIT FOR PHOTOG AND SF ... more

Photo: Handout

Image 3 of 4

David Starr Jordan, first president of Stanford University.

David Starr Jordan, first president of Stanford University.

Image 4 of 4

japansociety_001_HO.jpg
Henry Pike Bowie -- San Mateo painter, author and Japanophile whose death occasioned a scandal in 1920 when his will revealed a secret Japanese wife (who taught manners to courtiers of the Emperor). Founding member of the Japan Society
Photo courtesy of the Japan Society MANDATORY CREDIT FOR PHOTOG AND SF CHRONICLE/ -MAGS OUT less

japansociety_001_HO.jpg
Henry Pike Bowie -- San Mateo painter, author and Japanophile whose death occasioned a scandal in 1920 when his will revealed a secret Japanese wife (who taught manners to courtiers of ... more

Born in a hostile climate of anti-Japanese hysteria 100 years ago this month, the Japan Society of Northern California has become a major impresario of bilateral exchange and understanding.

No other nation has a private organization devoted to it in the Bay Area offering such a wide range of activities and programs for the general public.

"They do a very good job of helping both sides of the Pacific -- Japan and the Bay Area -- understand each other on many different levels: business, cultural and political," said Scott Kleinman, spokesman for the nonprofit World Affairs Council of Northern California, a co-sponsor of programs with the Japan Society.

The society will celebrate its centennial at a $250-a-head fundraising banquet tonight with retired Toyota President Tatsuro Toyoda and Intuit co-founder Scott Cook.

The society's history has been deeply entwined with the Jekyll-and-Hyde extremes of U.S.-Japan relations and with the enduring Japanese influence on Bay Area culture, cuisine and lifestyle, from the Zen aesthetic and ubiquitous sushi restaurants to animation mania and the design of brown shingle homes.

San Francisco in particular has played a central role as "the de facto hotspot for transactions between the two countries," to borrow a phrase from a Japan Society newsletter.

When Japanese diplomats from Tokyo and all their diplomatic missions in the United States gather two weeks from now for a conference with Japanese-American leaders, for example, they will meet in San Francisco.

The first Japanese delegation to the United States, back in 1860 when a Shogun still ruled in a capital called Edo, made its U.S. landfall in San Francisco. The first Japanese consulate in the United States was established in San Francisco.

The Peace Treaty with Japan, which formally ended the bloodiest conflict in the history of the world, was signed by 49 nations in San Francisco in 1951. That same year, San Francisco hosted the signing of the enduring Japan-U.S. defense pact that formed the present U.S.-Japan alliance, which former U.S. Ambassador to Japan Mike Mansfield famously called the "most important bilateral relationship in the world, bar none."

San Francisco was a city confronting a growing crisis when the Japan Society was born. Nearly every American knows about the U.S.-Japan war that began in 1941, but few know about the one that threatened 100 years ago because of fierce anti-Japanese hysteria centered in California and San Francisco.

A Chronicle headline in 1905 warned: "Japanese Invasion: The Problem of the Hour for the United States." The article declared that "the brown stream of Japanese immigrants is likely to become an inundating torrent." Fear of Japan was at a peak -- in defeating Russia, it had become the only Asian nation ever to defeat a modern Western power -- and some Americans were beating the drum for war.

Three people in the Bay Area stood up to the tide of fear and prejudice by forming a chapter of the Japan Society to foster bilateral understanding. They were Stanford's first president, David Starr Jordan; a San Mateo Japanophile named David Pike Bowie (who secretly married a Japanese woman who taught manners to courtiers of the emperor); and Japanese Consul General Kisaburo Ueno.

Jordan also used his public lectures to oppose prejudice against Japanese, and he and Bowie wrote letters to leading journals.

The society today has 1,700 paying members and ranks as the second oldest, after Boston, of 38 such societies in the United States. It's administered by a five-person staff from offices on Washington Street near the TransAmerica Pyramid.

Though its half-million-dollar budget pales in comparison to the $10 million spent last year by the Japan Society of New York, the Northern California society plays an important role in the network of organizations feeding the Bay Area's many U.S.-Japan connections and strong interest in Japan.

"It helps that this region is so significant in the U.S. and Japanese economies," said the society's executive director, Christopher Sigur.

The society has focused increasingly in recent years on business ties, tapping into welcome corporate support and sponsoring bilateral corporate meetings. In addition to business seminars linked to the Bay Area's high-tech industries, the society also organizes public lectures and conferences on many topics, Japanese classes and informal get-togethers.

The centennial's theme, "New Japan," refers in part to Japan's changing economic prospects as it shows signs of emerging from a long economic slump, Sigur said.

He acknowledged that the perception of Japan's importance is often eclipsed by the business buzz over China's dramatic growth, but he stressed that Japan remains a dominant economic partner particularly important to the Bay Area.

California led the nation in exports to Japan last year, with $13.3 billion worth, up 13.3 percent from the year before and roughly double the state's exports to China, according to U.S. Commerce Department data. The leading category of what the state sold to Japan was computers and electronic products.

"One of the things that people forget is that the United States and Japan are still the two largest economies in the world," Sigur said.

Latest from the SFGATE homepage:

Click below for the top news from around the Bay Area and beyond. Sign up for our newsletters to be the first to learn about breaking news and more. Go to 'Sign In' and 'Manage Profile' at the top of the page.